Roberto surprised me today with an illustration of me and Biscuit. How cool is that! Thanks so much! I'm even more handsome than I imagined, lol ;-)

Lost Biscuit For Sale $3000 Bozeman, MT

Back in mid Sept 2025 Dave had decided to sell his fleet of Jeeps due to his health conditions he wanted to clean up some of his stuff and pass it along.

He had created a post on his personal website and sent over the images to me as well with the info to do as you please (no pressure there!), we posted them up, he had 4 for sale, Patterson the '56 DJ, Lost Biscuit '49 CJ-3A on a CJ-5 platform, a race Jeep, and a very unique FC Transport rig.

A few days later he told be he had a bite on Lost Biscuit and it went down the road to MT. Based on the asking price I figure it was in need of repairs, the current pictures show it does need a lot of love but it still looks pretty good.

Searching up the various items that he did to this rig its a pretty neat Jeep. From the custom hand painted name to all sorts of small modifications that were done. Its been a journey, if you are in the market for a pretty neat base project this might be for you. The opportunity to own a real piece of eWillys history.

Andy actually gets the credit for finding this on Craigslist, during my research this AM the old posts had a lot of images that would only load when clicked and made a lot of the older posts to not properly display the photos, I worked to fix that this am it was a DB edit and impacted 61k posts and over 330k references, but was a very simple fix to take care of, so that back end work on the eWillys Archive is always in progress. I really hope you get some time to spend reading through the Lost Biscuit story and if in the market think about picking this one up.

Research Lost Biscuit on eWillys Click Here

Current Ad

Jeep/ Willys CJ5 - $3,000 Bozeman, MT

Andy's Picks

LOST BISCUIT!!!

Link to Ad

Information from Seller

Willys Jeep custom build project
1973 CJ5 with some 1949 parts
Modified fiberglass body and hood
Rebuilt Buick 231 even fire V6 engine, manual transmission and original transfer case and axles from the 1973 (rebuilt)
The engine is mounted but the headers and steering will need modification.
I have the radiator, two sets of headers and other parts necessary to build it out.
$3000
Please leave a voice message at 406 ,58 seven:4.99 to. This phone cannot accept texts.
Thanks!

Previously on eWillys.......

Historical Photos and Information

Specs and Information Click Here For Post

Past Photos and Artwork

Great artwork from Roberto Flores!!!

Lost biscuit finally arrived in Prosser, though The Jeep is a shadow of its former self. The original 3.8L V-6 was burning oil badly out of cylinder one, so while replacing the engine I also replaced the transmission, switching from an TH350 automatic to a T-18 with a low first. But, I could never find the time to complete that transition. Engine placement, driveline angle, and  header angles seemed to fight me the entire transition. However, now that Biscuit is here, I'll eventually have some time to devote to it (first, the race jeep's seat will get adjusted for my height, then I will deal with Patterson's generator and with the brake-clutch pedals, then Lost Biscuit).

To get Biscuit home, first I had to install a winch onto the tilt bed. After thinking through various ideas, I came up with a trial system that secured a winch frame to the tilt deck, but used a vertical angle against the from of the tilt deck as added leverage for the winch.

Here are some of the pieces I started with:

This shows the underside of the tilt deck. The square tubing in the pic above this one was drilled and bolted to the deck, with the bolts going through the wood and into angled pieces on either side of the hydraulic arm. I figured that was the least invasive way of mounting a winch (for now).

This shows the completed platform bolted onto the deck. Note how the front angle piece on the left sits down in front of the tilt bed. This allows the tilt bed to open and shut:

Here are a few other pics from different angles with and without the winch:

The winch is a Traveller 9500lb winch from Tractor Supply. It was relatively inexpensive and, frankly, overkill for its assigned task. Below, it's in action with Ann running the controller. The winch is connection via jumper cables to an extra battery (from Patterson) that I brought to run the winch.

Here's Biscuit tied down with chains and a tie down strap for extra protection (double failure security).

Near Cle Elum, one of our tires with only 300 miles on it blew. Why'd it happen? We can't say, but after consulting with multiple people, I learned just how cheap these tires probably are. Thankfully, we only had to limp a couple miles into town and had a new tire mounted in about 10 minutes thanks to the guys at the local Shell station. We plan to replace all four tires with quality tires, then save the others for spares.

And, finally, here's biscuit at home. If you'd told me 10 years ago that it would take a decade before Biscuit and I would be in the same place, I wouldn't have believed it. It's certainly been an interesting journey!

NAME NEWS:  The name Gus has been retired in favor of Lost Biscuit.

For two years I've called my project Gus.  It all started with a hunk of flattie junk I towed home more than two years ago.  As you can see from the pic to the right, the grille is rough and full of personality.  It just looked like a Gus.

Over the following months I traded parts and pieces away until I finally gave away the last piece, the grille, to Mitch because I had decided against using the grille.  However, the name continued to stick.

During the past month, I was playing some xBox online with my sons, specifically Call of Duty World at War (It's a kick to play).  Karson couldn't find a username he wanted so he just picked two random words and came up with FoundedBiscuit.  His brother, Colter, wanted his own handle and came up with LostBiscuit.  During the summer we became Team Biscuit.

The first time I heard it, I told them I thought that Lost Biscuit would be a great Jeep name.  After thinking it over and asking them a couple day ago, we agreed that Gus should be renamed Lost Biscuit.  Given that I'm a former chef who still loves to cook, having a food as part of the name is entirely appropriate.

PROGRESS

Drove Down the Street: Today marks the first day I drove Biscuit out of the garage and down the street, very slowly.  The first thing I discovered is that power brakes work really well.  I'm thrilled with them so far.  The th350 also feels great -- I thought there'd be a little lag in drive like I feel in some vehicles with an automatic, but as soon as I tap the gas at all the tranny bites and moves the jeep forward.  The lack of tranny noise, especially in low range, is nice compared to the manual trannies that I have experienced (with the exception of the ford toploader dad used to have).

Brake Lights Fixed: I got the brake lights fixed; the lights work when the pedal is depressed now (as opposed to staying on when it wasn't depressed).  I used a brake pedal switch and assembly from a late 80s cherokee that had 6 wires coming out of it.  I mistakenly wired the two wires that were 'on' when the brake wasn't depressed.  I just had to hunt for the two that were 'on' when the brake was depressed.

Power Steering Fluid Faux Pas: I learned today that if you accidently overfill the power steering fluid that it will pressurize and shoot out a tiny little hole in the cap, bounce off the ceiling in your garage, and shower stuff below.  oops!!!  Lesson learned.  Truly, it was an honest mistake.  I had taken off the cap to get out any remaining air and the fluid looked low.  So I filled it up a little farther, put on the cap, shut off the engine and SURPRISE -- a stream of fluid shot out the cap.

Some of the remaining fixes:

1.  Fix turn signals- these don't work at all
2. Fix small leak in brake fluid "T" at the front
3.  Fix driver's side head light wiring (something is crossed)
4.  Build pattern for seat covers that I can send Jim (Thanks Jim!)
5.  THE BIGGIE:  Buy tubing for rollcage and build Cage (Steve, if I get Bisquit up there, can you still help me with this?)
6.  Get glass and cowl seal for windshield.
7.  Get Steering Wheel wrap and quick turn knob for steering wheel

Yesterday, I spent some time deciding how Lost Biscuit's name should appear and where I might put an ewillys logo.

Building the Logo

The simpler of the two items to create was the eWillys logo 'sticker'.  I took an EPS version of the eWillys logo, increased the size in photoshop and then applied it to the jeep.  You can see in the first image below, which is entirely a photoshop mockup, that it works pretty well.

However, when I increased the logo further, printed it out, and placed a paper version on the jeep, the logo appears washed out.  I think I need to embolden the eWillys name to give it a darker appearance when printed.  The actual sticker will be stuck to a thin plate (probably an aluminum plate made from a street sign which i can pick up cheaply at my local metal recycler).  That makes attaching the logo, and getting it positioned correctly, easier.

Finally, after staring at it over the last few minutes, I have decided to put some more white space above the logo itself -- it feels too crowded at the top.  So, I'm going to center the logo a little more within the ellipse.

Creating Lost Biscuit's name

Creating the Lost Biscuit name was more of a challenge, mostly because I needed to settle on a font.  I knew I did not want a pure san-serif font (think arial, helvetica fonts), because I felt that would be too angular and void of personality.  I didn't want too much of a serif font (think Times or Garamond), as that would be too formal.

No, I needed something slightly modern and slightly whimsical, which is how I settled on an italicized Tekton Pro. After experimenting, I also decided to go with all capital letters (and increasing the size of the letters L and B) as it I thought it worked better visually.

In image 1, the photoshopped image, the size looks just about right.  I tried it in black, but decided white worked the best.  In the second image, I printed and cut out the letters, leaving small strips of paper to keep the letters connected.  Unfortunately, after all the work of cutting out the letters, I decided that 4" tall letters were too tall.  So, I dropped the letters to 3 1/2", which I think will work well (to be tested very soon). Once I finalize the design, I'll head to a local graphics shop and have them made.

I finally got a chance to get Lost Biscuit onto the dirt today (Saturday).  One of the unique aspects of Boise is that the surrounding foothills have been reserved for recreation.  There are areas for hiking, walking dogs, biking, motor biking and four wheeling.  One of the quickest ways to reach the foothills is to head north on 8th avenue from downtown.  It takes all of 5 minutes or so to reach hiking and biking areas.  It's about 15 minutes to hit the motorized offroad areas.

My son Karson was with me.  It was his first off roading experience.  We were only out about an hour or so, as I'm being careful to push the bounds of the jeep slowly to let everything 'settle' into place.

On the positive side, the suspension is as I could have hoped.  It's firm enough for the corners, yet handles the bumps well.  It's a step up from my first suspension, which was a step up from the early jeeps I drove. We wound up the hill, took some side roads, tested out low range and four wheel drive.

On the negative side, I've still got a little oil that appears to be the result of valve covers that aren't quite sealed correctly, so I'll have to take them off to see what's happening.  Here's some pics before we got muddy.

This is a pic facing west.  Those foothills are all part of the foothill recreation system.

Here's Karson with the hills and hundreds of miles of hiking, biking, four wheel drive trails, and the Bogus Basin Ski area behind him.

In this southern facing image you can see the City of Boise to the left and the entire Treasure Valley filling the background.  I can't say for sure what the pole is, other than a modern day totem of some kind?

At some point in the near future my mother is selling her place. Her health has deteriorated quite a bit this year. Ann and I have pulled most of my stuff from her place, though there is one last big item ... Lost Biscuit. To bring Biscuit home, finally, we've purchased a new trailer as seen below.

It's a Great Northern tilt trailer with dual 5200 axles and an 18ft bed. It's arguably overbuilt for carrying a jeep, but we felt that there's every possibility that we could 1) take another trip to Alaska, which can be a rough ride at times, and/or 2) take a jeep with us cross country for a show or two. In addition, we wanted something capable of carrying our tractor, which weighs around 4500lbs.

Unfortunately, the slowing of the global supply chain combined with the pandemic has hit several trailer manufacturers (according to several dealers I spoke with while researching a trailer). Basically, these companies lack crucial parts to complete trailers, so they are waiting on any parts they can get to assemble trailers and get them to dealers. Multiple dealers told me they couldn't say when their next delivery of trailers would be or even what models they might get.

The nut of it is, we didn't have much choice on what we could purchase. But, we got what we could and it should serve us well.

So, on Thursday we'll head for Seattle and pick up Biscuit and its various parts.

UPDATE: Comments are now fixed.

I hope everyone enjoyed the temporary break! It is easy to forget that a website is always one corrupted file away from going down.

Speaking of breaks, we have a week trip planned to Arizona starting Monday. It won't be a slow winding trip, as 1) we need to get down and back in a week's time (cows and home responsibilities) are a big reason for the quick trip; 2) we have a small not-bad weather window for coming back; and 3) we have reduced our social interactions, because both Ann and I had some sucky, lingering long-covid issues last year (so, we reduced our exposure to folks and take pre-cautions; I am finally feeling like my old self).

One of our objectives is to pick up a Muller top frame in California that Mike has been kind enough to save for me. I plan to rebuild one for Biscuit following the original plans (probably next fall or winter, which is likely when I'll have time to finally address Lost Biscuit.

Our second objective is to test drive and purchase a new vintage jeep. I look forward to sharing the news should everything go as we expect!

Both Gerald and Bob sent us pictures Sunday from Bantam Fest.  I've made a few comments on them, but it's late, so most are without comments.

Here is one they sent one of them together (Gerald on the left and Bob on the right) holding a picture of Lost Biscuit.  Looks like Bob is wearing one of Roberto's T-shirts.

Below is Lee Bortmas,  the Bantam historian in Butler standing next to a BRC-40.

Rick Pewe  is Editor-in-Chief of Petersen's Four wheel & Off-Road Magazine and a recent inductee into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame.  Gerald reports Rick is on a trip from Arizona to Butler to Nova Scotia and back.

Click below to see more pics

Only this update tonight ....

Gerald reported in just a few minutes ago.  Much fun had by all.  There were jeeps everywhere.  He hasn't gotten the official parade count, but he said people were rolling in for hours.  Thanks Gerald!

Gerald notes, "Things were great tonight at the BantamFest Jeep Parade.  All I can say is there were hundreds.......... here's a couple shots.  i will get an official count on Saturday."

The staging lot with the Lost Biscuit (Thanks to Gerald, I'm attending virtually.  Rub me for good luck!)

Registration

They were coming in for hours

Late model line ups

General shot.  It was packed

Main Street in Butler

Finished off with a late night tire change from NDT's to the Turbines with Mini Terras for Saturday.

Already met some cool people, Maine to Australia.